Fleur's Magical Powers

In the story “Fleur”, by Louise Erdrich, the main character, Fleur, is believed to have some sort of magical powers by her tribe members. They become suspicious of her when she survives drowning twice, and by the fact that the men who helped her both times die. The tribe members began to speculate as to why she has survived drowning twice, when, because she is Chippewa, she shouldn’t have survived the first.

I don’t believe that Fleur actually has any magical powers. I think that Fleur made the other tribe members nervous, and they started to tell of her “powers” and possible relationship with the water man, Misshepeshu, to warn others, possibly the younger members, of how “dangerous” she is. Fleur doesn’t act like the other members at all. She is “strong and daring”, just the type Misshepeshu is attracted to. Fleur also disrespected her elders by laughing at their at their advice, she dressed like a man, dabbled in half-forgotten medicine, and “studied ways we shouldn’t talk about”, which is not at all how a young woman should be acting. The other tribe members wanted to make a kind of example out of this girl, encouraging others to stay away and never to act like her.

I believe the way that Erdrich wrote this section of the story lends itself to the theory that the tribe members are making up stories of Fleur having powers. The section involving Misshepeshu reads like a compilation of warning tales mothers would tell their daughters. The fact that Erdrich lists all of the different things that he is, what he is made of, and what he will do to seduce a young girl suggests several different versions of the same story to me. These mothers are warning their daughters to not be like Fleur in order to not attract the attentions of the water man.

The same is true of the section that describes Fleur. Erdrich lists all of Fleur’s negative qualities and actions quickly, with several different examples in one sentence, which makes it read like it was several different versions being exaggerated with each telling. She starts off with the unsavory things that Fleur has done, like laughing at the elders’ advice, and then goes on to say that she carries a child’s finger around in her pocket, wears powdered unborn rabbits around her neck, and goes hunting at night, but in a non-human body. The stories get more and more far-fetched as it goes on, much like a “big fish” story does with each telling.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 1)